my life story

Fategories: UNDERSTANDING THE FATNESS SPECTRUM SMALL FAT BELOW A US WOMEN'S 18. OR 1X - 2X This is the smaller end of the fatness spectrum. Small fats can usually straddle the line between "fat" and "straight size." They can face medical discrimination & poor interpersonal treatment but are generally able to participate in public life with few restrictions based on size. MID FAT BETWEEN A US WOMEN'S 20 - 24 OR 26, OR 2X - 3X Typically only able to shop in plus-size stores, with brick-and-mortar shopping options less frequent. At the upper end of many plus-size retail offerings. More visibly fat, they experience more size discrimination in healthcare, at work, and may have trouble fitting into seats and other public spaces. LARGE FAT US WOMEN'S 26 TO 32, OR 4X- 5X The end point for most plus-size clothing, mostly relegated to online options. This term can also apply to anyone at the larger end of the fatness spectrum, though typically they place closer to the middle of the bell curve. SUPER FAT / INFINIFAT LARGER THAN A US WOMEN'S 32 BUT ALSO IT'S COMPLICATED! "Superfat" was created at a NOLOSE conference in 2008 & is meant to describe the largest & most underserved folks in fat communities. They face significant barriers to access in healthcare, clothing, public spaces, workplace discrimination, and beyond. "Infinifat" describes the same group & came into prominence around 2017, via Ash of The Fat Lip Podcast. Her widely-circulated size chart placed "Super Fat" below "Infinifat," which is often how it is used. Usage may vary, but both terms indicate people on the largest end of the spectrum. DEATH FAT Term created by fat activist & writer Lesley Kinzel in 2008. The term was not intended to have any specific size range or limitations, & can be used anyone who wishes to reclaim their "morbid" fatness. FLUFFYKITTENPARTY.COM

note: As you see in the title, this post will talk about antifatness. It will also talk about disordered eating stuff and racism that might be hard to read — I mention this because it would be hard for me to read if I wasn’t ready for it.

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A few years ago I was telling my now-15 year old how I felt like my “real self” was my thinner self, how I used to be. “Mama, that’s fat-phobic,” she said. At 12, she had introduced me to the podcast Maintenance Phase and was becoming even more incredibly wise than she had been before (and she was already wise!). “No way, I’m not fat phobic!” was the essence of my response. She pointed out that my saying my “real self” was my thinner self was rejecting the me who is now. That by rejecting my fat body, I was saying there was something wrong with it. Therefore: anti-fat. There were even more nuances in the things she said to me, but this was the gist.

Fategories: UNDERSTANDING THE FATNESS SPECTRUM SMALL FAT BELOW A US WOMEN'S 18. OR 1X - 2X This is the smaller end of the fatness spectrum. Small fats can usually straddle the line between "fat" and "straight size." They can face medical discrimination & poor interpersonal treatment but are generally able to participate in public life with few restrictions based on size. MID FAT BETWEEN A US WOMEN'S 20 - 24 OR 26, OR 2X - 3X Typically only able to shop in plus-size stores, with brick-and-mortar shopping options less frequent. At the upper end of many plus-size retail offerings. More visibly fat, they experience more size discrimination in healthcare, at work, and may have trouble fitting into seats and other public spaces. LARGE FAT US WOMEN'S 26 TO 32, OR 4X- 5X The end point for most plus-size clothing, mostly relegated to online options. This term can also apply to anyone at the larger end of the fatness spectrum, though typically they place closer to the middle of the bell curve. SUPER FAT / INFINIFAT LARGER THAN A US WOMEN'S 32 BUT ALSO IT'S COMPLICATED! "Superfat" was created at a NOLOSE conference in 2008 & is meant to describe the largest & most underserved folks in fat communities. They face significant barriers to access in healthcare, clothing, public spaces, workplace discrimination, and beyond. "Infinifat" describes the same group & came into prominence around 2017, via Ash of The Fat Lip Podcast. Her widely-circulated size chart placed "Super Fat" below "Infinifat," which is often how it is used. Usage may vary, but both terms indicate people on the largest end of the spectrum. DEATH FAT Term created by fat activist & writer Lesley Kinzel in 2008. The term was not intended to have any specific size range or limitations, & can be used anyone who wishes to reclaim their "morbid" fatness. FLUFFYKITTENPARTY.COM
fluffykittenparty.com

This exchange added to the work I was already doing, healing from a lifetime of disordered eating. I’m now a mid-fat person and I can see why they say hindsight is 20/20. Just like my racism, when my eyes started opening to my own antifatness, I had to face some real ugliness in myself. As I began to experience the social costs of fatness for myself, I was able to see how shitty I had been to fat people in the past.

In my social circles throughout most of my 54 years, there have been almost no fat people, not even “small fat.” Just like we were almost all white, almost all from privileged socioeconomic classes, we were almost all quite thin. It wasn’t something I ever really thought about, it was just how it was.

But, looking back, why was it? Did I think people who were even approaching fatness were failures? (narrator voice: she did.) I considered myself to be fat at the time (I was not) and much of my life was spent trying to be not fat. “I have no problem with other people being fat, they’re beautiful! I just don’t like how I feel when I gain weight,” was my way. And now, OUCH, I understand how that is antifat. And also, it was a lie!

While I don’t remember specific examples of it, I am 100% sure there were times when someone might’ve approached our groups socially who we didn’t welcome because they didn’t fit in (because they were fat). I have no doubt in my mind that happened. Dehumanizing and horrible is how I treated fat people all the while being so very, very sure I didn’t and would never.

How do I know this now? I know this now because as a mid-fat person, I have experienced the almost imperceptible difference in acceptance in social settings. There’s a gaslighting quality about it, very similar to how I’ve heard Black people talk about racist micoaggressions. When I experience it, I know it. It’s not in my head, it’s not my imagination, it’s real. People treat me differently now that I am fat.

Antifatness is all around me. For example, I reached out to the people in my faith community who are in charge of arranging the chairs on Sundays suggesting we be sure there were at least a few seats not so close together so larger bodies would be accommodated. Not only did nothing change in the arrangement of seats, I didn’t hear back from anyone — I emailed several people and not one of them replied. Sure, “maybe they didn’t get the email” is a possibility but see how the mind goes there? No. Accepting fat bodies as fully human and as fully worthy of respect and consideration isn’t the norm in even our most progressive spaces (at least in the predominantly white ones — antifatness is an intersectional issue for sure).

I’ve experienced and lost the advantages of being in a conventionally attractive ( = thin) body and the upsides were omnipresent. Doctors treated me better, for example. I know what it’s like to’ve had those advantages and I know what it’s like living without them. I can only imagine (and have read and heard so I know) things are worse for people fatter than me.

If you are not fat — I don’t mean you sometimes “feel fat,” I mean if you are in a privileged body that passes on the thin side — I’d like to invite you to explore your own antifatness. When I began digging I was stunned by what I found. As I have been excavating and throwing away the trash, making space for newer fresher truths, all aspects of my life have been improving. Just like the practice of somatic abolition has been transforming how I move in the world especially in relation to my role in upholding white supremacy, practicing somatic abolition and using other recovery tools for my antifatness has brought me glimpses of new freedoms. These are good paths full of joy, gratitude, and solidarity.

If nothing else, maybe start listening to Maintenance Phase? There’s no one-fits-all solution to the work we thin (or previously thin) people need to do, but I’ve found this an incredibly helpful resource.

In the 1990s, in a newsgroup on Usenet, I met a some people who engaged in what they called “combat prose.” I was in my 20s, very newly sober, and everything in life was exciting. We were all writers, some well-published, some just there for fun. Combat prose was about brutal take downs of your (writing) enemy. People would debate or argue and their words showed their prowess in writing skills and, as far as I was concerned, their cruelty.

Once, one of the most rage-filled of them all IM’d me on AOL. It was thrilling and scary. His persona was a hard core biker dude. Like, I’m talking an outlaw biker. I was just starting out life as an adult; I hadn’t seen much of the world. I had posed a question about combat prose while I was considering why I didn’t engage in it. This persona — many of the people there didn’t use their real names — gave me some insights into the why of it, and what makes someone skilled in that kind of writing. In this newsgroup, there were some who were clearly well-known and he was one of them. I felt like I was chatting with a kind of celebrity. We didn’t talk much more back then, but he would come to my defense if I accidentally got mixed up with some of the other combat prose people.

A few of us, probably many of us, moved on to blogging in the late 90s and early 2000s. (That’s when I started this blog.) It was a great time for a writer (and reader) like me who loved processing ideas with writing and learning about other people through their words. Several of us got to know each other quite well in those years.

The combat prose guy who messaged me back in the 90s became an unexpectedly good friend of mine. It’s hard to make clear how unlikely it is that we became friends. I was as politically left as I could manage and I believed in the ultimate good in everyone and he prided himself on his right-wing conservatism. His persona was a cruel, tactless, misogynistic racist. His real self had some qualities in common. He wasn’t cruel as a friend, but his values were about as polar opposite from mine as anyone could imagine.

In our friendship I learned a lot about myself. For example, I explored the complicated truth that being an antiracist doesn’t mean shutting the door on racists in my life. We would debate via blog comments or email after email with conviction and passion. We learned from each other. That includes some changing on his part when it came to his racism and misogyny as I saw it and as he told me. We definitely both changed.

When people say online relationships aren’t “real,” I know this isn’t true. The relationship I had with this online friend was deeply meaningful for many years and he will always have a place in my heart. Online relationships are just as real as offline relationships, they’re just different.

I’m writing this today because last night I learned that he died. He died after his motorcycle crashed. No one else was hurt. The man that I knew would have chosen that way to go. There’s no way to share this kind of news that isn’t abrupt, so I’m just stating the facts. Stating the facts. He would’ve liked that.

When I’m in a flare, when the pain isn’t ignorable and the brain fog makes working almost impossible and the fatigue forces me to pause, I get wrapped up in my mind trying to explain to the world how fatigue is different than tired. Most people, I imagine, would prefer not to work full time. Most people, I’m pretty sure, would love to take a break and rest whenever they felt like it. Lots and lots of people live with chronic illness and pain or stress so overwhelming it’s difficult to function. I know this. So, when my body makes it almost impossible to keep up with my day-to-day tasks, part of me thinks “sure, you spoiled brat don’t take care of our responsibilities, everyone else has to keep going but you’re too lazy.”

Ugly, yes?

I wouldn’t speak to a friend that way, but there’s a part of me that’s sending a steady stream of this bile at me when my body won’t let me keep going.

There’s stuff going on in me, as an individual with my own life history and emotional makeup. And there’s also the general demanding force of racialized capitalism that we live under here in the USA. Produce produce produce. Tired? Keep going. Need a rest? You are failing. Bills too high? Tough luck, keep working.

Racialized capitalism wants to keep us too tired to organized. Too tired to imagine other alternatives.

When I hear the ugly voices in my head as I can not stay standing, can not keep typing, as I have to lie down, I can disentangle myself from my personal stuff, I can heal that. The force of racialized capitalism’s messages feel insurmountable, though. I imagine a crowd of people with lives much more difficult than mine calling me names and making me feel responsible for their suffering. How can I rest when I know others can’t?

Being a member of the oppressor groups brings a thick layer of “I don’t deserve rest” messages. Believing that lie hurts more than just me. It keeps me too weak to be a part of creating a better world for all of us. It prevents me from showing up for other humans when they need support. It’s letting racialized capitalism win if I believe that lie. We all deserve rest. There is no meritocracy for deserving the basic necessities of life — food, shelter, clothing, love, joy, and rest are the necessities I’m thinking of at the moment. At this moment, I can’t keep typing. I need to go lie down.

middle aged white woman with dark hair and glasses, she is wearing an N-95 maskEveryone I know, including myself, wishes COVID wasn’t an issue anymore.

I remain COVID-cautious — masking whenever I am with people outside of my immediate family, socializing almost exclusively outside, testing and using air filters if we are going to be in a group inside, etc. Most people I know, even those who were as cautious as I have been for the first three years or so, have moved on to acting like COVID isn’t a concern anymore. (My children are sweet, they mask when they are with me and they do sometimes mask in social gatherings but not all that often as far as I know.) Being COVID-cautious is exhausting and lonely. It’s also disappointing.

Why am I still masking everywhere? Of course, I’d like to not catch COVID again (I made a rare exception to my COVID cautious behavior last year and ended up getting it). And, as someone who lives with chronic diseases already I definitely don’t want to get long COVID. I won’t try to post data or statistics here trying to show how COVID-19 in general is still a serious threat—everyone knows how to Google—but long COVID is a heck of a chronic condition and I wouldn’t wish chronic illness on anyone.

Even more than these substantial personal concerns, I mask because I care about the most marginalized people in our communities. I mask because there are people who can not go places where people are not masking. I wear my mask most of the time even when I know it’s “low-risk,” because I want anyone who would be in a life or death situation if they got COVID (or any other respiratory illness, honestly) to know they are a part of our communities.

When my faith community gathers on Sunday mornings, almost no one is wearing a mask.* Because of this, I only attend via Zoom. Again, some of why I don’t attend in person is concern for my own health. But sitting in a room full of people in close quarters silently breathing together mostly unmasked for an hour fills me with deep grief and raging anger. How can these people not care about our disabled siblings? How can they be so callous? And, because these feelings of grief and anger well up more intensely when I am there in person, I’m not able to center in to worship. So I don’t attend. The same feelings flow when I am attending via Zoom, but I don’t want to lose my faith community entirely and I need that worship time.

Those of us who are still COVID cautious are few and far between. It is, as I mentioned, a lonely way to be. Of course I would love to visit with friends inside on a regular basis. But most of my friends aren’t masking anywhere, so the personal risk is too much. Of course I would love to attend Meeting for Worship every Sunday. But, as I mentioned, almost no one is masking and I can’t stomach being a part of a community so dismissive of immune compromised and disabled people.

It’s difficult to have conversations about this with friends, loved ones, and other people in my life because in agreeing to disagree about our “personal choices” or our “individual risk tolerance levels,” social lives remain not inclusive. In agreeing to disagree — in saying “it’s okay for you not to mask” — I am abandoning those among us who will be shut out from all social gatherings because of that agreement.

This situation is exhausting. It’s also unavoidable until more people start wanting to build inclusive communities for everyone.

 

 

 

* After a lot of pressure from me, and possibly from others, my faith community has been experimenting with “masks encouraged” Sundays once a month. I am so grateful for it, and I do attend in person on those Sundays whenever I can. But I’m still grieving and angry that these folks who claim to care so much about humanity seem perfectly comfortable telling our disabled and immune compromised siblings they don’t matter on other Sundays.

Note: This post is about me as a white woman dealing with my racism, written mostly for readers who are white, though of course anyone is welcome to read.

Twenty seven years ago today (it’s just past midnight on July 2), I spent 24 hours not drinking or using drugs. Twenty seven years ago tomorrow, I went to my first 12-step recovery meeting. I haven’t found it necessary to take a drink or misuse other drugs since then. I’ve written about my recovery story a few times on my blog (here, here, and here, for example). The short version of that story is I found out in 1996 that I have an allergy to alcohol. If I drink even a little bit of it, I have a reaction that becomes overwhelming: I need another drink. I also am not able to remember fact this 100% of the time. I had to build a spiritual life that included a power greater than me (I call it god) to keep me connected to that truth. These days, not drinking is something I pretty much only think about when I’m in fellowship with other alcoholics. It’s not a big deal to me at all. I’m grateful, and I love living in recovery.

That said, as I consider my recovery story tonight, I’m reflecting about the ways I use the tools of a 12-step program to learn to break free from my addiction to whiteness.

When I say “whiteness,” I don’t mean the color of my skin which of course I can’t change, though being white plays a role. A quick Google (google is our friend, my fellow white people!) pulls up a concise definition shared on the National Museum of African American History & Culture website, “Whiteness and white racialized identity refer to the way that white people, their customs, culture, and beliefs operate as the standard by which all other groups of are compared.” I sometimes refer to it interchangeably as “white supremacy culture,” though there are probably nuanced differences I miss when I do that.

Using whiteness, even when I didn’t know I was, has done for me what drugs and alcohol did (for a while, until they stopped working) — it keeps me numb. My recovery from my addiction to whiteness and white supremacy culture is about being different, moving differently in the world. I don’t have a checklist, this is not a linear path I will complete after x, y, z tasks. One of the most important and effective part of this recovery is learning how to stay in my body.

Following Resmaa Menakem‘s way of using the phrase, “somatic abolition,” combined with embodiment practices shared in trainings led by Rev. angel Kyodo williams, author of Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation, as well as therapy, 12-step recovery, and Quaker worship, among many many other resources* I am learning how to stay in my body so I can, among many other important things, actually face the truth of — words fail me so much, and I’m a writer! — the horrors of the ongoing and historical oppression of Black and brown bodied people and the ways white people like me have also suffered.

Facing the truth means uncovering the layers and levels of denial that are baked into my DNA as an individual, and are the default way of being for me and my white peers. It requires a lot of therapy and a lot of practice. I’ve had to find places where I can process the levels of pain and despair that feel like they might destroy me when I consider what my blood ancestors did, for example. I’ve had to build skills — and oh my goodness, I am so new at this! — to be able to stay present in my body when I face how much I’ve benefitted from systems and structures that have brutalized and continue to brutalize people.

As I mentioned above, words fail when I try to talk about the injustice of these systems that keep me and my white peers from being fully human and literally threaten the lives of Black people every day. It seems like no matter how much I try to write about these things, I can never capture all of the complexities. I can never do it justice. But I still do write about it, some. I write about it (imperfectly) because it has been my experience that we white people need to get out into the open the things we hide even from ourselves. I write about it so other white people might look at themselves, too. Rev. angel talks about having closets full of crap (I’m very very loosely quoting here) that we’re trying so hard to keep hidden and it takes so much energy to keep it hidden, we’re never fully able to be present. I think of it as what prevents us white people from being fully human.

In addition to therapy, addressing my own specific experiences of trauma, learning to stay in my body, finding space and communities where healing is possible, I also depend deeply on my spiritual life to break free from whiteness. Just like alcohol, that the book Alcoholics Anonymous refers to as “cunning, baffling, and powerful,” whiteness is slippery and tricky and whispers to me all the reasons I don’t need to be on this transformational path. I’m someone who spends quite a bit of energy on this practice and just the other day I was a seriously racist jackass to a dear friend. If I’m ever going to be able to play a part in movements of solidarity, I need to get my own stuff in order. (I made amends to my friend as a part of a much broader conversation.) And also, I can’t wait until I’m “done” before I work against the existing systems of oppression, because, the fact is the more I learn, the more I know I don’t know. I’ll never be “done.” I need a spiritual connection to a higher power to keep me in the truth: my humanity depends on breaking free from whiteness even if so many strong forces around me are crying out for me to stay in the numbness.

The process of dropping the weapons of whiteness leaves me vulnerable in ways that are absolutely terrifying. I have to trust and rely on god as well as the grounding/embodiment practices I’ve picked up along the way. The identity shifting that’s been happening over the last decade or so has taught me that life outside of white supremacy culture is deeper and more joyful (and painful!) than anything I’ve known before. It opens of channels of imagination (and I feel whiteness trying to shut it down!) that I believe are part of the keys to a better world for all of us, together.

 

* I’ve worked with an extraordinarily gifted consultant as part of this growth, and I’m currently reading (very slowly) Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto and Braiding Sweetgrass.